Mr. Speaker, I do want jobs but long before 2013.
Steel slabs made in Hamilton by U.S. Steel are being shipped to the U.S., rolled into coils there and then returned to Hamilton for customers like Honda Canada. U.S. Steel is moving Canadian product 1,500 kilometres for processing in the U.S. when Lake Erie Works, a top-notch Canadian facility in Nanticoke, is left sitting idle.
In the Nanticoke plant, 1,100 jobs are on hold while steel is senselessly travelling back and forth across the border. Clearly there is no net benefit to Canada when steel imports from the U.S. are up by 74% in one year.
Will the government stop hiding behind its court case and act to help workers now?